ed, because, since Christianity being written, can address us in a rational way, these extraordinary arguments are no longer necessary. For the same reason Inspiration has ceased. God is economical and will not waste his power, nor work a miracle to accomplish what may be accomplished by ordinary means. The Spirit no longer acts in us as an Independent Teacher, but instructs us instrumentally through his written word.

But has not every Christian "an unction from the Holy One to teach him all things-so that he needeth no man to teach him?" 1 John ii. 20, 27. Certainly, every Christian who reads the Scriptures with a sincere desire to know the truth, has the witness of the Spirit to their truth, so that he needs no man to tell him "this is the word of God." For he beholds there the Image of God and is SURE that they came from God,more sure than any mere Philosopher can be, when he looks upon the heavens, that "God made the worlds." And this will explain some of your favorite texts: "He that believeth hath the witness in himself"-" If we receive the witness of men, the witness of God is greater" 1 John v. 9. 10. Thus our Lord's promise to send the Spirit is fulfilled without putting ourselves on a par with the Apostles in point of inspiration, or making internal light our rule.

Obj. 3. " Abraham, Isaac and Jacob had not the Scriptures, yet had an infallible rule." Should we grant they had an extraordinary portion of the spirit it would not follow that we are to expect the same, and that the Scriptures are not our rule; because before a written revelation was given such immediate instruction was more necessary than at present. But the whole argument is a mere quibble. If these patriarchs had not the Scriptures, they had what is the same thing external revelation ; and their internal light was in exact proportion. The first light Adam ever had of a way of salvation was the external promise, Gen. iii. 15. "The seed of the woman shall bruise the serpent's head." The external revelations given before the days of Moses were the only rule of faith in those days. And since they have been embodied in the Book of Genesis, the Spirit will never be at the trouble of revealing them again! And the same may be said of all the truths of the Bible, since the Spirit has committed them to writing, he will reveal them no more, but gives us the writing as a substitute for immediate inspiration. The Patriarchs had a rule addressed to their external senses as well as we.

Obj. 4. "Salvation is attainable without the Scriptures, the Scriptures therefore, are not the Rule of Faith." Let Amicus produce one instance (except Infants and Idiots and others incapable of faith, or of being called in an external way) of a

person brought to the knowledge of Christ without an acquain

1

tance with external revelation, and we will admit the force of his argument. Till then we shall deny the fact. Rom x. 14.

Obj. 5. "You leave millions of mankind in a most pitiable state." Granted. We leave them (doctrinally) where your Society would (practically) forever leave them, without the light of Revelation, without hope and without God in the world! "What a cruel doctrine is this!"-Is that argument drawn from Scripture, or from feeling? Declaim as loudly as you please about the partiality, cruelty and tyranny of God," all this is no argument with those who make the Scripture their only rule. Yours is an argument drawn from feeling (or internal light) in direct contradiction to the word of God. You set up yourselves as judges what it is right and fit for Almighty God to do; thus presuming to "re-judge his judgments, be the God of God!" In regard to the state of the heathen, you set up your internal light against both Scripture and facts. Facts (some of which I will detail hereafter) show that the state of the heathen now is the same as in the days of the Apostles, when describing their character, Paul strings twenty-three vices on one string, (Rom. i. 29, 31.) And the nations which have not the Scriptures, have the same light which the ancient Romans, Corinthians and Ephesians had before the Apostles came, in other words, they are" without Christ, aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, strangers from the covenant of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world." The only spirit that works in them, is "the Prince of the power of the air, the same who now worketh in the children of disobedience :" Eph. ii. 2, 12. All the light they have is the light of Nature, Conscience and a few scattered rays of external revelation."But why has not God sent them the Bible."-It belongs as much to you as to us to decide that question. I would simply answer, for the same reason that he did not provide a Saviour for the devils, that he leaves any of mankind to perish-that he denies the heathen science, cis ilization and liberty, because his justice does not require him to bestow any blessing upon sinners, and because he chooses to do what he will with his own; and I may add, because he works by means, and will call Christendom to a strict account for not having long ere this sent the Bible and the Gospel to every creature.

Obj. 6. "If any man speak (preach) let him speak as the oracles of God, -this oracle is internal light, therefore internal light is a rule for preachers." This objection refers to the only one of all my arguments which Amicus has attempted to answer, and the awkwardness of his answer confirms my argument. "Oracle" (in the singular number) always denotes the voice of God speaking from the Temple: "Oracles" (plural) always denote the things spoken. Thus Stephen speaking of the fathers, says "who received the lively oracles to give unto us." Acts vii. 38. Pray, how could Moses and the Jewish fathers transmit the "Oracle" or voice of God to their descendants! But any one can see how they could transmit the "Oracles" or things spoken, to wit, by writing. Two things then are taught in this text of Peter, "If any man speak, let him speak as the oracles of God," first, that the Scriptures are not a "dead letter" but the LIVELY ORACLES of God; and secondly, that all Preachers instead of following any internal light, should make the written word of God their Rule. PAUL.

LETTER XXI.-Continued from page 212.

I will now notice some of Paul's assertions respecting the tendency of this doctrine. 1st. He says, "It leads you to deay the plenary Inspiration of the Apostles." What he means by this unscriptural term he has not explained to us. But we believe that the Apostles were fully and sufficiently inspired to record the great and all-important truths of Christianity; and that they did so record them to the comfort and confirmation of their successors in the Christian faith. As we acknowledge that they wrote under "the guidance of the WORD OF SPIRIT OF GoD," we admit in the most unequivocal manner, the Divine Inspiration of the Apostles-My opponent's assertion falls to the ground of course.

2nd. He says, "It leads you to neglect the Scriptures as not necessary to a knowledge of the divine will."-Now I affirm, that the Holy Spirit never led any one to neglect the Scriptures. I am sure it never led us to neglect them on the contrary it has led us to search them diligently-to peruse them carefullyto practice the doctrines they record-and what is more, it has led the Society, as a religious body, to recommend and enjoin on their individual members the "frequent reading of the Holy Scriptures," and every meeting regularly constituted by the Society, is required to report to the general annual meeting of Friends, whether its members have complied with this injunction. This will be I think a sufficient refutation of the false charge of my opponent.

sd. "It leads you to question the authenticity and correctness of our copy of the Bible." What he means by "our copy of the Bible," he has not explained. If he mean the translation in common use made in the reign of James I. of England, I answer-That this translation of the Scriptures is not perfectly correct we very well know. And it cannot be denied that the original copies of the Bible from which the present

translation was made, were far from being the most perfect. No man who is acquainted with the original tongues and who has had the opportunity of comparing our present version with them, and with above three hundred ancient manuscripts which have since been discovered, should dare to say otherwise. Robert Barclay the celebrated Apologist-a man who was critically skilled in the Latin, Greek, and Hebrew languages, has said, that " divers passages in the common translation are corrupted and perverted." This sentiment is supported by many of the most learned and judicious Commentators since his time-it is a sentiment that every revolving year confirms. Dr. Blackwall in his "Sacred classics" when speaking of the present translation, says "Innumerable instances might be adduced of faulty translations of the Divine Original, which either weaken its sense, or, debase and tarnish the beauty of its language;" he adds, "No man can be so superstitiously devoted to them, but he must own that a considerable number of passages are weakly and imperfectly translated, and not a few falsely rendered." Waterland, Doddridge, Wesley, Wynne, Pilkington, Purver, Worsley, Lowth, Secker, Durell, White, Kennicott, Green, Blany, Geddes, Symonds, Wakefield, Newcome, with many others that I could mention, particularly the present Dr. Adam Clarke, whose learning has rendered him one of the most conspicuous characters of the present age, all concur with Dr. Blackwall in the principal views he has expressed on this subject. Now it would be a very singular property of Divine Light, to sanction the present translation in those passages, where, as Dr. Blackwall has affirmed, "the Divine Original is falsely rendered !"-Yet I will venture to affirm, what I am sure cannot be controverted, that no Society of People has less réferred, in disputed points, to the imperfection of the present translation, than the Society of Friends.

But what has a just regard for the Sacred Scriptures, to do with the present translation of them? Does Christianity or common sense impose on Christians such a regard for the Scriptures, that we must reverence a false translation of any part of them? that we must submit to doctrines, or embrace opinions, which the original writers never held ? It would be absurd to affirm it? Nevertheless we believe, that even in the present translation, the divine truths of Christianity are so fully unfolded that the real Christian will not be at any loss to discover in it, sufficient to confirm him in all the essentials of our holy faith; and therefore we may very rationally account for the fact, that there is no Religious Society who is less anxious for a new translation of the Scriptures than the Society of Friends. For my own part I believe that all the doctrines we hold, may, on the ground of fair argument and rational demonstration, be defend

ed and confirmed by numerous clear unequivocal passages, in the present translation of the Holy Scriptures.

Now if Blackwall's assertions be true and I think "Paul" will not venture to contradict them on what a boundless ocean and without a compass do the principles of my opponent leave us!-In Letter III. he says "Now suppose a word or clause in a prophecy be altered, it may falsify the whole." If then the alteration of a word or clause may falsify the whole-if many passages be falsely rendered-If Dr. Mill have "ascertained thirty thousand various readings, and Welstein more than a million"-how can we possibly know, without the surer evidence of the Holy Spirit, that we have the real sentiments of the inspired penmen? It is impossible !

Bat a more extensive difficulty arises, and must ever remain, on my opponent's principles-Eusebius informs us, and we have many other authorities for the fact that several of the Scripture Books, now universally received as canonical, were considered doubtful for the first three hundred years after Christ -particularly the Epistle of James-the second of Peter-the second and third of John--that of Jude, and the Book of Revelations. Cyril, A. D. 348, rejected the Revelations, as did the Council of Laodicea, A. D. 363. Now, without a divine "immediate Revelation" how can we ever ascertain whether the ancients were right in rejecting these Books, or we right in receiving them--Right cannot appertain to both. Can the Scriptures inform us on these points? Certainly not. How then can this dark cloud of uncertainty be dissipated? I answer, by, and only by, the clear inshining of that "light which lighteth every man that cometh into the world;" or as the late learned and enlightened William Jones expressed it " by the Influence of God's Holy Spirit clearing up our judgments"--It was, I apprehend on this view of the subject, that Calvin expressed the following sentiment--" Let this remain a firm truth, that he only whom the Holy Spirit hath persuaded, can repose himself on the Scriptures with a true certainty." Inst. Cap. 7. lib 1. From all of which I draw the following argument-

If "he only whom the Holy Spirit hath persuaded can repose himself on the Scriptures with a true certainty"-If only by "the influence of God's Holy Spirit clearing up our judgments" we can distinguish between the inspired Writings and those that are not inspired-then the Holy Spirit, the Christian's only divine "Internal Light" is his primary Rule of Faith-and then we must be right in judging of the authenticity and correctness of any copy of the Bible by this Rule.

AMICUS.